You don't need a craft store run to make beautiful ornaments. Most of what you need is probably already in a kitchen drawer, a fabric scrap pile, or a recycling bin. Making ornaments now, while there's no holiday rush, also means you'll have a head start on a fuller, more personal-looking tree by December.

Salt Dough Ornaments

Mix one cup of flour, half a cup of salt, and half a cup of water into a dough. Roll it out, cut shapes with cookie cutters (stars, trees, simple circles work best), poke a hole near the top with a straw before baking, then bake at a low oven temperature until firm. Once cooled, kids can paint them freely — these are genuinely one of the easiest and cheapest ornaments to make from scratch.

Cardboard and Paper Ornaments

Cereal boxes or any thin cardboard can be cut into simple shapes and covered in scrap fabric, old wrapping paper, or even pages from a book you're getting rid of. Glue the covering on, punch a hole, thread some string or ribbon through, and you've got a textured ornament that costs basically nothing.

Fabric Scrap Ornaments

Small fabric offcuts can be wrapped around foam balls or stuffed into small fabric pouches sewn shut, then decorated with a bit of ribbon or a button. Mismatched fabric scraps actually look great together on a tree — it gives a handmade, cozy look that store-bought ornaments don't have.

Button Ornaments

If you have a button jar lying around (a lot of households do), string buttons of different sizes and colors onto wire or sturdy thread in the shape of a small tree, snowflake, or star. This is one of the fastest options and works well as a quiet activity with kids.

A Note on Doing This With Kids

Salt dough and button ornaments are the most forgiving for younger kids, since mistakes are hard to make and the materials are safe to handle. It's also a nice way to build a “we made this together” keepsake that means more on the tree than anything bought.